Nathan
For a moment, Eleanor didn’t say anything, didn’t move, didn’t even blink, and I could tell, just from the way her fingers curled slightly at her sides, from the way her lips parted but no words came out immediately, that she hadn’t expected to see me out here, or if she had, she definitely hadn’t expected me to be standing here like this, sweat still cooling on my skin, my shirt tossed onto the porch, my presence a disruption to whatever plans she had made with her friend.
And maybe, if I hadn’t spent the last thirty minutes thinking about her, about the way she had looked at me that day, about the way she had avoided me after I had introduced her to my mother as my woman, I would have been content to just stand here and let her be the first to speak, to let her regain control o
